


Captured

by arxiver



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 09:17:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5411345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arxiver/pseuds/arxiver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Bucky are captured while on a mission for the Avengers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Steve groans and rolls over, blinking to try to disperse the fog behind his eyes. His body still feels sluggish from the tranquilizer he was hit with, but his eyes are starting to focus on the man across the room. It's Bucky, sitting on the floor with his back to the wall. He's stripped down to his shorts and a tank that shows off his entire metal arm and the scarring at the shoulder. It's a sight Steve doesn't normally see, since his friend usually keeps the arm covered up, even when sleeping.

"Welcome back, Cap," Bucky cheerfully greets him. "Thought you were going to sleep forever."

Steve starts to sit up, and immediately regrets it as his head starts spinning. He groans and grabs his head and slowly completes the motion, sitting up with his back to the wall, mirroring Bucky's position on the other side of the room. Bucky just chuckles at his discomfort. "What happened?" he grunts.

"It was a trap," Bucky replies. "The lead we got on that Hydra cell was bullshit. They knew we were coming, had trank guns powerful enough to knock even you out."

"Do you know who's got us?"

"Not a clue. I woke up here just like you. We could be anywhere, it's not like we have a view." Bucky gestures around the room. Steve's senses have recovered enough to start to take in his surroundings.

They're in a cell, approximately 8'x8', surrounded on all sides by dirty, damp concrete. The wall to Steve's right is mostly taken up by a massive steel door and metal bars provide an extra layer of security by blocking their access to the door. The room is cold, not helped by the concrete, or the fact that Steve has been stripped down to the shorts and undershirt he wears underneath the Captain America armor.

"How long have you been awake?" Steve asks.

"A few hours. I checked the perimeter for weak spots, nothing yet. Those metal bars look like they go deep into the concrete on either side, wouldn't budge. I don't think we're getting out that door until they open it for us."

Steve trusts Bucky's judgment on this, no need to check, especially since getting up is sure to make his throbbing migraine worse. Steve does have one question though. "No offense Buck, but why'd you wake up first."

Bucky chuckles a little at the question. "What's the matter Stevie, feelin' insecure?" Bucky smiles at the annoyed glare he gets from Steve. "Don't worry about it Steve, they probably just gave you an extra dose of the sedative because they see you as the bigger threat. That's what I would do." Bucky's expression darkens at the last thought. Steve has seen that look enough over the last year or so to know that Bucky just remembered one of the more unpleasant Winter Solider memories. Bucky growls in displeasure and averts his gaze to the floor. Steve sighs inwardly when he sees this. He hasn't been able to convince his friend not to be ashamed of the memories when they come back to him. It's as if he doesn't want Steve to be tainted by them by even looking him in the eye.

Steve knows he needs to change the subject before Bucky lets the dark mood take him over. "So no idea where we are?" Steve tries.

"None," Bucky spits back.

Not helping Rogers, Steve thinks. Bucky hates repeating intel. It can make him an ass during mission debriefings when the brass asks them to go over the mission again and again until they're blue in the face.

"That's not a problem." Steve tries again, hoping he is succeeding in keeping his voice light. "The Avengers should be able pinpoint us from our trackers, and they should be here in no ..." Steve trails off when Bucky lifts up his arm. He is pointing to a thick jagged cut on his forearm, right where the tracker had been implanted in both of them. Steve looks down at his own arm. The skin is healed already, only a small pink line showing evidence that he was cut into, probably several hours before. Steve runs his fingers over the skin on his forearm, looking for the telltale protuberance of the tracker, knowing it is already gone. "Damn!"

That, strangely, gets a laugh from Bucky. "Yeah, Cap," he starts with a huge grin on his face, "Looks like we're kinda screwed."

"Have you gone insane, why are you laughing." Steve's mood has gone sour at the news they are cut off from the Avengers, but Bucky has started laughing so hard he's doubled over.

"Ha, your face, Steve," Bucky barely manages to spit out between bouts of laughter. "You went from Captain Optimistic to Captain Sourpuss in like two seconds flat."

Steve never liked it when Bucky was laughing at his expense, but Bucky so rarely lets loose anymore that Steve can't help but smile a little at the sound of this friend's laughter.

"You're really not concerned about this situation, are you Buck?"

Bucky's laughter trails off, but his grin stays in place. "Nah, Steve, I've been in worse situations than this."

Steve bows his head at this, eyes plastered to the ground. He knows Bucky is thinking about his time with Department X and Hydra. Steve hasn't gotten over his own guilt for that, for not going back for Bucky after he fell in 1944. He knows his friend's experience as the Winter Soldier has changed him, he just wishes Bucky wouldn't dwell on it.

As if to confirm Steve's suspicious on the nature of Bucky's thoughts, the man continues speaking, the mirth leaving his eyes. "I wouldn't worry about this, Steve. After Hydra...," he pauses and looks down at his hands, one flesh, one metal. "Let's just say," he continues, "anyone who isn't trying to fry my brain to turn me into their own personal assassin, is small potatoes." Steve winces at the casualness of the words. It's such a hard subject for Steve and Bucky to discuss, but Bucky is trying so hard to make it seem like he doesn't care. Steve's starting to wonder if Bucky was forcing the laughter earlier.

Steve doesn't know what to say. He feels like he should try to cheer Bucky up again, but he's at a loss for words and the silence stretches on, neither man looking the other in the eye. "Plus," Bucky starts, breaking the tension, "you're here." Steve looks up, startled, and meets Bucky's eyes again. Bucky's got his legs pulled up in front of him, a protective gesture that Steve is all too familiar with. He got his arms draped over his knees in and attempt to appear causal, and his head is drooped down, staring at Steve through his chin length brown hair. He looks so vulnerable for just a moment as he looks Steve tentatively in the eyes. Steve stares back, trying to read through the expression on his friend's face to figure out what he meant.

"What..." Steve begins, only to be immediately waved off by Bucky.

"I don't mean I want you to be captured." Bucky hurriedly explains. "I just mean..." Bucky huffs in exasperation. "I guess I'm just glad I'm not alone," he finished in a small voice.

Steve gives him a small sad smile. "Me too, Buck"

Bucky lifts his head and smiles back shyly. Suddenly he perks up, and that old Bucky charm slides right back into place. "See Steve, it's not so bad here." He jumps back to his feet and walks from wall to wall in their small cell, taking about two strides before reaching the other side and having to turn around. "There's room to walk around, we've got each other for company. It's just like our first apartment!"

"Our first apartment was not that bad." Steve gladly joins in the old argument to keep Bucky in good spirits.

"Steve, that shithole didn't even have running water."

"There was running water in the bathroom on the first floor."

"Yeah, you didn't mind, 'cause I was the one lugging it up three flights of stairs." Bucky sits down on Steve's left side, leaning against the wall. Steve leans over to knock shoulders with Bucky, grinning madly at his friend. The argument peters out, no real fight in it. They've been over this many times before. Steve is feeling the glow he always gets when Bucky brings up their shared past. Bucky's had the bulk of his memories back for over a year now, but Steve will never get over how glad he is that they can have these arguments at all. There were too many one-sided conversations in the first few months after Bucky turned himself into Shield. Steve would tell some story about their past, how they met, tales from the war, or just that time they got beat up by bullies Steve was too dumb to walk away from, and Steve would always end by asking Bucky if he remembered. For months Bucky would just shake his head no, until eventually he starting saying yes. These days they still trade old stories, just to remind each other that they can.

Steve slings his arm over Bucky's shoulders and brings him in close. "Yeah, Bucky, I guess you're right."

"I usually am," Bucky replies, full of swagger and self-confidence as usual.

Steve just chuckles. "This place isn't so bad with you here."

"Also," Bucky starts again, and Steve groans. They were in a good place, and he can hear from Bucky's tone that this isn't going anywhere good. "No one has tried to use us as guinea pigs to test their super soldier serums, so that's a plus." Steve winces, thinking of Zola. "Hell, I even still have my arm," Bucky finishes, holding up the metal appendage as he talks about it. Steve visibly cringes at that. The comment is directed at Shield, who, without consulting Steve, removed Bucky's metal arm after Steve had convinced him to willingly turn himself in. Bucky was none too happy about it, and wouldn't talk to Steve for weeks. Apparently he is still sore about it, if he was bringing it up now.

Bucky continues, ignoring Steve's pained reaction to his words, though slipping out from Steve's embrace to go back to pacing. "Yup, so far this is my best imprisonment yet! But hey, we're only a few hours in. Still time for them to get creative." Bucky is back to scowling now, expression matching the determined set to his shoulders as he paces around their tiny cell.

Steve sighs. Bucky's always been prone to mood swings, but since he's been back, Steve has noticed that his friend's mood change more wildly if he's agitated. Bucky's trying to put on a brave face, but truth is, he's worried.

Steve needs to get him to calm down. Stopping the pacing is a good first step. He gets to his feet to put himself in Bucky's path. "Buck," Steve starts, reaching out to the other man, but stops when a noise interrupts him from outside their cell. Bucky stops pacing, and they both turn to face the door. The large steel door creaks and groans as it starts to open, the metal bars in front stay in place. It looks like they are about to find out who has captured them.


	2. Chapter 2

The door opens to reveal a short middle-aged man with a receding hairline. He is wearing worn down military fatigues with a red star on the shoulder. _Former KGB?_ Steve thinks, _That's never good._

"Good," the man begins in a thick Russian accent, "you're both awake."

"Who the fuck are you," Bucky spits back.

"Ah, Mr. Barnes," the man sighs, a sinister smile on his face. "You should have more respect."

"Yeah? Well,катись к черту!"

Steve never did learn Russian, but he knows from Bucky's tone, that was nothing good. He sighs inwardly. Steve doesn't want to give this self-righteous asshole any respect either, but maybe it's not a good idea to directly antagonize the guy who is holding them captive.

But their captor doesn't seem phased by whatever Bucky said to him. "Very amusing, Mr. Barnes," he continues. "I'm glad you find my mother tongue so useful for swearing." Bucky is practically snarling at him at this point, but the man continues on in a light tone, as if this were a polite conversation they were having. "As an answer to your question, I am Anatoly Novikov."

"You act like that's supposed to mean something to me," Bucky shoots back.

"I hope not," Novikov replies. "I've worked hard to keep my name out of intelligence circles."

"Well you don't seem to care we know now," Steve chimes in.

"True." Novikov turns his attention to Steve as he answers him. "I guess you could call this my big coming out party." Bucky, always the immature one, quietly snickers. Steve shoots him a glare, silently willing him to grow up. Novikov, however, doesn't seem to notice and continues to speak. "And for my first act, I've managed to capture Captain America and the Winter Soldier. That alone should get people to notice. But it's my next move that will get people to really pay attention to me."

"What's that?" Bucky asks with a mischievous smirk, "You gonna pull a bunny out of a hat?"

Steve groans. It seems Bucky did not get the message to grow the fuck up. Novikov glares at Bucky, finally starting to get annoyed with his behavior. It seems the man does not appreciate that he's not being taken seriously. After a moment, he replies slowly in Russian, looking Bucky straight in the eyes. "Я собираюсь сделать тебя своим."

The smirk slides right off Bucky's face and is replaced by a scowl. Steve frowns, he wish he new what Novikov had said to him. "I'd like to see you try," Bucky responds with a deep growl.

Novikov's sinister smile is back in place. He knows he succeeded in getting to Bucky. "You seem very confident Mr. Barnes," he continues. "Full of false American bravado. But you don't seem to understand the situation you are in. Let me spell it out for you. When I started at the KGB, I was a student of Vasily Karpov."

Bucky visibly pales at the mention of the name. His eyes have gone wide and he is staring at the floor. Steve has seen that look a few too many times. He knows Bucky isn't seeing anything in the room right now, he's replaying memories.

Steve racks his brain, trying to remember who Vasily Karpov is. He knows the name from the Winter Soldier files, but he can't place it. Bucky obviously knows exactly who he is talking about though.

"I see I've gotten your attention now," Novikov continues, his smile wider now. "Before Department X sold you to Hydra, Karpov was training me to be his successor. I know all about how the machine works."

It finally clicks for Steve. They are talking about the machine that wiped Bucky's memories and implanted programming that made him the perfect assassin. The Winter Soldier files are full of detailed descriptions of the machine. It made Steve sick the first time he read it.

Hydra had acquired the machine when they purchased the Winter Soldier after the fall of the Soviet Union. They used it ruthlessly, wiping Bucky's memories more aggressively than Department X had, usually every three or four days. While Department X had used the Winter Soldier on longer undercover missions, taking advantage of his ability to blend in as an American, Hydra had used him exclusively as a weapon, taking out targets quickly and returning to base to have it scrubbed from his memory.

"But we destroyed the machine," Steve supplies. It was true. Steve had found the machine Hydra used on Bucky in a bank vault in DC when he was hunting down the remnants of Hydra, hoping to get a lead on Bucky. The file didn't have pictures or diagrams of the machine, so he didn't know what he had found at first. It just looked vaguely like a dentist's chair with some electronic equipment near the top. The computers in the vault though, had helpfully provided a video of the machine's last use. Steve had gritted his teeth as he watched Alexander Pierce backhand his best friend, and then a confused Bucky explaining that he knew 'the man on the bridge'. After Pierce had ordered him wiped, Steve didn't make it through one of Bucky's screams before he smashed the computer monitor into the far wall of the vault. Then he turned his attention to the machine that had caused his friend so much pain, and ripped it apart, piece-by-piece.

The file had mentioned a second machine in a Department X facility outside of Moscow, and that is where Steve had finally caught up to Bucky. Steve had caught wind of Bucky's movements as he became more and more reckless taking down his former handlers. Steve had found him in the remains of the Department X facility, covered in his own blood and sitting in the wreckage of the machine. Steve had cleaned him up and taken him back to his safe house. There, he finally got through to Bucky and convinced him to turn himself into Shield.

"There was a backup in Kiev, only Karpov and I knew about," Novikov helpfully answers.

Well, shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are welcome and appreciated. Thanks to Kana_Go for help with the Russian.


	3. Chapter 3

“Fuck!”

Bucky paces around the tiny cell. He gets about three steps before he has to turn around. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he yells. Steve knows he has to stop this before Bucky gets really worked up.  The last thing they need Bucky having a panic attack in here.  He needs to get Bucky to sit down, breathe slowly, and calm down.

“Bucky,” he begins, “Breathe OK. There’s nothing we can do from here. We just need to sit and wait for the Avenger to find us.”

“That’s exactly why we’re fucked,” Bucky replies. “The Avengers have no fucking clue where we are.  They’re not going to find us anytime soon.” He keeps pacing, his strides getting longer. It only takes him two steps now to span the length of the cell. 

Steve isn’t going to calm him down until he stops the pacing.  He gets up and places himself directly in Bucky’s path.  Steve grabs him by the shoulders and forces him to stop.  “Bucky, listen to me. It will be all right. We’ll get out of here somehow.”

Bucky lowers his head, and his breathing steadies. But Steve knows his friend too well. He may have staved off a panic attack, but he hasn’t stopped the flood of emotions going through his friend’s head. “I want to believe that Steve,” Bucky starts with his head still lowered, “I really do. I just don’t see how.  The Avengers are smart, and they have their ways, but our situation is going to stump them for a little while.  If they come at all, it will be a few days or a week before they can find us. And by then…” he trails off.

Steve knows that Bucky is thinking about the chair. The chair that stole his memories mission after mission, the chair that programed him into a killing machine who didn’t even know his own best friend. “No,” Steve says, “We will get out.” He releases his grip on Bucky, and he, thankfully, does not go back to pacing. Instead he slumps down on the far wall with a view of the bars.  He stares at the bars as if he could tear them apart with his mind, but he doesn’t have those kinds of powers.  Thankfully, the people who do are looking for them right now. 

“I still think about it you know.” Steve does know. Bucky has a look about him when he does. “I know I ripped that last one to pieces, but it wasn’t satisfying enough.  That thing turned me into a monster, a monster I can never get rid of. I remember everything they had me do. I remember…” Bucky pauses, “I remember shooting you. I remember beating your face in, I…”

“Bucky, Stop,” Steve orders.  “This isn’t helping.”  Bucky growls but doesn’t go on.  Steve hates that Bucky still has the tendency to blame himself for the actions taken while he was the Winter Soldier.  He wasn’t in control, it shouldn’t be on his conscience.  But Steve understands why it is.  Bucky had to see through his own eyes the atrocities he committed. He saw his own hands take so many lives. It’s not something he’s likely to quickly get over.

“What we need is a plan,” Steve starts over. “What do we know so far?”

“That a crazy guy wants to fry my brain,” Bucky replies. 

“Still not helping,” Steve retorts. “We don’t know where we are, but we’re being held by a Russian.  Do you know about the guards?”

“They’re Russian too,” Bucky supplies

“So is it possible we are in Russia?” Steve asks.

“Not likely. Novikov wouldn’t keep his secret base anywhere close to the motherland.  We don’t know how long we were out, so we could be anywhere from China to the good old US of A.”

“Ok, so we don’t know where we are. That’s not important, the Avengers will figure that out.  You’ve already mentioned the lack of security flaws in this cell.”

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees, “Our only opportunity to get out will be when they come to get me.  They’ll open that door.

“Plan of attack,” Steve asks.

“Rush ‘em,” Bucky replies. 

"I suppose that's as good a plan as any," Steve says sarcastically.

"No really," Bucky replies, "It's the only plan. What else do we have to work with?"

"You're right," Steve relents. "Unfortunately, that's all we have."

 

* * *

 

They try to get some sleep that night, but it’s not easy.  The floor is concrete, hard and cold.  But Steve and Bucky were soldiers.  They’ve slept in worse places.  It isn’t the cold, hard floor that is the problem, it’s the anticipation of what is to come. Steve shifts in his sleep. He knows that Bucky is worried about the chair, about what it will do to him. Steve knows he fears becoming the Winter Soldier again.  To lose control once is bad enough, to go through it again after tasting freedom, Steve can’t even imagine. 

Steve is worried about the chair too, but for different reasons.  He believes that Bucky is strong enough to resist it, at least for long enough for the Avengers to find them.  No, Steve is worried about what it will do to Bucky psychologically.  It took Bucky a long time to get back to being himself. Steve fears that facing the chair will make Bucky slip back in his progress.  Steve will be there for him, of course he will, but he doesn’t want it to be necessary. 

Bucky rustles in his sleep.  Steve turns to look at him.  He’s rather surprised that Bucky was able to fall asleep at all, especially considering Steve’s current sleepless state.  But he is glad that Bucky will get some rest before tomorrow. Steve isn’t sure what’s going to happen, but he knows that it won’t be good for Bucky.

Bucky turns over again. Steve lifts his head. He’s not sure, but he thinks that Bucky’s breathing has increased. Bucky turns over again, this time so that his face is turned towards Steve. Steve can see now that his jaw is clenched tight and he looks like he is in pain. This is what Steve worried about, that Bucky would get stuck in a nightmare caused by dredging up the past.

"Bucky," Steve calls as he gets up from his sleeping position. "Bucky, wake up." Steve is over to Bucky's side in seconds, but not before Bucky lets out a pitiful moan. He needs to wake Bucky up now. He touches Bucky's shoulder to gently shake him awake. The affect is immediate, but not the one the Steve was going for. Bucky starts screaming at the top of his lungs. His eyes are still closed, and Steve knows he is still locked in the dream.

He picks Bucky up by the shoulders and shakes him hard. Steve hates to manhandle Bucky this way, but he knows from experience that it's better to wake Bucky up as fast as possible than to try to slowly wake him up gently. "Bucky!" he yells while shaking him. Bucky's screams turn into gasps as he startles awake.

Steve grips onto him hard, giving Bucky something to help ground him. Bucky lies there for a minute in Steve's arms shaking before he starts to get his bearings. Then his arms snake around Steve's back and hold him just a hard back. "Steve?" he asks quietly, lips right up against Steve's ear.

Steve answers quickly to give him comfort. "Yeah, Bucky. It's me. I've got you." He shifts his grip on Bucky so the position is more comfortable for the both of them. "You're with me now." Usually this is the point where Steve will assure Bucky that he is safe. But considering their current circumstances, he's not sure he can make that promise.

Steve pulls back to look Bucky in the face. He is wide-eyed, pale, and still visibly shaking, but his eyes do connect to Steve's when they look at him. He's awake at least. Steve embraces Bucky once again, holding him gently but firmly. Bucky stuffs his face into the crook in Steve's neck and starts to cry, his chest shivering violently with each sob. Steve just holds him close and lets him cry.

He hasn't seen Bucky have a nightmare this bad in months. When he was first released from Shield, he came to stay with Steve. That first month, Bucky had bad dreams every single night. They were vivid and violent. Bucky's screams pierced through Steve's soul, informed him of all the pain and misery that Bucky had gone through while he slept on the ice.

Every night Steve tried to wake him up, to release him from the memories he was reliving. Every night it was the same. Steve would try to get him up as gently as he could, but every time Bucky would wake up ready to fight. For a few moments after waking up, Bucky didn't know where he was. He thought Steve was there to cause him more pain, and he did his best to defend himself. There was more than one showdown that ended up with one of them bleeding.

Over time the nightmares got better, but they never fully vanished. Every now and then Bucky would wake himself up with a strangled scream. Steve would come running, but Bucky always waved him off, told him he wasn't needed. He wanted to help Bucky, but he could be pig-headed and stubborn about dealing with his problems on his own. Steve strongly suspected that he has had more nightmares than the ones Steve knew about, ones where he didn't scream, but were just as bad.

This dream though, this one was really bad. He knew that dredging up the past with Hydra, Department X, and the chair would stress Bucky out, but to have a nightmare this bad, it must go beyond what Steve imagined. Bucky is still crying softly in his arms. He would never show such vulnerability in the field if he wasn't well and truly cracking up at the seams. Steve hoped that this wasn't as bad a sign as he thought it was.

Bucky calms down a bit and stops sobbing. Steve lies down and brings Bucky to lie down on top of his chest. He hopes that his calmer breathing will help Bucky regulate his. Bucky gratefully clambers on top of him and grips him tight around the waist. Slowly his breathing returns to normal.

After a few minutes of deep breaths, Bucky turns to Steve. "It was the chair," he says, and lies his head back down on Steve's chest. Steve holds him around the middle with one hand and brushes hair from his face with the other. "I know," he replies. "I know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos make my day!


	4. Chapter 4

Novikov comes for Bucky the next day. They don't have much of a plan, but they'll do their best to get the upper hand on the guards and get out of this cell. After that they'll have to improvise.

The steel door opens, but they are still behind the bars of the cell. Novikov is there, flanked by two guards "Good morning," Novikov says cheerily.

The guards put up their guns. "Put your hands on you head and face the wall," one of them says. Steve and Bucky do as they're told, no other choice. Once they have complied, the guards open the cell door and approach. They move towards Bucky, reinforced cuffs in their hands.

When they reach Bucky, he makes his move. He spins with lightning fast speed and takes the gun out of the closest guard's hands, then uses it to bash the guard's face in. Steve goes for the other guard, but he's not fast enough. The guard shoot his gun and hits Steve in the arm. But, to Steve's surprise, the gun doesn't shoot bullets. It's a dart gun. Whatever was in the tranks that took Steve down in the first place must be in these darts because he starts to feel woozy. Before he goes down though, he reaches the second guard and takes him out.

Novikov is still standing outside the cell with a look of amusement on his face. He hasn't moved and doesn't seem perturbed by the events taking place in the cell. Soon it becomes obvious why. The two guards aren't the only ones that came with them. Five more guards come pouring into the room and several more stand outside, their tranquilizer guns pointed at Steve and Bucky.

Steve falls to his knees, the sedatives are kicking in fast. The guards that are piling in have stun batons. One of them hits Bucky with the baton, and he goes down. _No_ , Steve thinks, but he doesn't have the energy to talk. He falls to the ground as well. He has to watch helplessly while the guards kick Bucky into submission and then drag him away.

Steve wakes up. He is alone.

Bucky. Bucky is somewhere probably being tortured right now. And Steve is here, unable to do anything but sit here and wait for Bucky's return.

What if he comes back and doesn't remember? Steve isn't sure that he can take that. He knows that Bucky would hate it. Then again, he wouldn't remember hating it so... Not a good place for his thoughts to go.

Steve thinks about what would happen if Bucky came back through that door without his memories. He knows for a fact that Bucky would rather go down fighting then end up the way he was before, a mindless killing machine doing the bidding of whomever owned the chair. Coming back from that was really hard on Bucky, but it was also hard on Steve. He thinks that something might break inside of him if he has to go through that again.

Steve thinks back to when Bucky came back to him. He had enough memories to know vaguely who he was and to know that Steve was someone that he could trust. Beyond that, he didn't know much. He learned more from the Smithsonian exhibit than he did from his own memories.

Steve had a tough time with that. He always wanted to connect with Bucky through their shared past. But when he shared an inside joke or a fun anecdote, Bucky didn't get it, he didn't remember.

Slowly Bucky's memories came back to him. Day by day he recalled more and more memories. But with the memories of a life in Brooklyn came the memories of the war, being on Zola's table, the fall from the train, and his life as the Winter Soldier. That's when the nightmares started.

At first they were nightly. Bucky would scream in panic every single night, recalling horrors that Steve couldn't even imagine. Steve would run in and try to comfort him, but it didn't always work. Some of the time Bucky would be disoriented and wouldn't know where he was. He would think he was still being tortured or forced into the machine. He would fight back, lashing out at Steve. Steve hated that he had to fight his best friend in moments like those. But if he didn't defend himself, if he didn't fight back, Bucky would have torn him to shreds.

Eventually, the nightmares lessened. They worse ones became every other night, then a few times a week, then once a week. Lately, the bad ones were all but gone. Steve knew that Bucky still had nightmares, but they were silent. No more screaming in the middle of the night. They didn't wake Steve up, so he couldn't be there to comfort him.

The dream he had last night was the worst he had had in probably six months or more.

Steve had tried to stay brave for Bucky when Novikov was trying to taunt them. But now, here alone in this cell, he is scared. He is scared of what Novikov has to do to get Bucky to submit. He is scared of what will happen if the chair works and Bucky isn't himself when he comes back. And lastly, he is scared that Bucky never will come back. What if he was wrong and the Avengers don't get here in time to stop Novikov. What if Bucky becomes the Winter Soldier once more.

Steve perks up when he hear the creaking of the steel door. The door opens to reveal a beaten and bruised Bucky being dragged into the cell by two guards at each arm. They unceremoniously throw him on the cell floor, and Bucky tries to catch his fall, but just misses. He gets up from the floor slowly to his hands and knees, trying to reach a sitting position.

Steve makes it to him before he does, and gingerly helps him up. He does a once over on Bucky, checking to make sure that he has no serious wounds that would require immediate medical attention. "I'm fine," Bucky begs him off, "Don't worry about me."

"You're not fine," Steve disagrees, "You look like you've been beaten to a pulp."

"I've survived worst," Bucky tells him, then immediately regrets it. Steve is looking guilty, thinking about the torture that Bucky went through in his seventy years as the Winter Soldier. "That was supposed to sound comforting," Bucky says softer. "I'm sorry."

"It's OK Buck," Steve says, "Just let me take a look at you." Bucky relents and lets Steve look. The wounds are many, but none of them are life threatening. Bucky will live to be a smart ass for another day.

"I was worried about you," Steve admits.

Bucky leans back against the wall and looks at Steve. "You don't gotta be worryin' 'bout me." he says back.

"Did they..." Steve trails off. He is thinking about the chair. He wants to ask, but he also doesn't want to know.

Bucky seems to know exactly what Steve's thinking. "It didn't take."

"What does that mean?" Steve asks.

"It means their stupid chair didn't work," he spits out.

"Why?" Steve asks softly. He knows he should be grateful that it doesn't work and just leave it at that. But if the chair is a perfect replica of the two they destroyed, it doesn't make sense that it wouldn't work now.

"It's going to take some time, that's all." Bucky looks bows his head and sighs before adding more information. "Last time, after I fell from the train." He shivers a bit, and Steve wants to do the same. Not a good memory for either of them. "I must have hit my head on the way down, because when I woke up, I had no memories. The chair does erase memories, but it's actually not very efficient at that. It's easier to do if the subject doesn't have a lot of memories to erase. Last time they were working with a blank slate, and after that they just had to clean up the few memories I made between wipes. Now I have the bulk of my memories back, they need to erase them all before I can be programmed. That takes time. They can't do it all at once"

"So we have more time," Steve says. "The Avengers..."

"Steve, if you start talking about us being miraculously rescued again, so help me..." he mimics strangling Steve, and it makes him laugh.

Steve turns more serious again. "If they just need time, why did they beat you?"

Bucky scoffs. "Novikov's bright idea. He thinks that if he breaks me before he puts me in the chair, the machine will work better."

"That's horrible," Steve says softly.

Bucky goes on nonchalantly. "It's not a terrible idea, I see why he's giving it a shot. It doesn't hurt him at all to try it." Bucky's expression gets a little more grim then. "But if he wants to break me, he's going to have to try a lot harder than that."

Steve flinches at that. He doesn't want to think about everything Bucky has gone through that would make him so resilient to torture.

"Come on, Bucky," he says instead, "We should probably try to get some sleep."

Bucky tries to lie down where he is, but he hisses a few times on the way down. He doesn't have his shirt anymore, so he is lying with his bare back to the cement floor. It's cold in here, and that can't make it any warmer. His teeth start chattering almost immediately.

Steve gets up and moves towards Bucky. "Here," he says as goes to lay down next to him, "Let me warm you up." Bucky gratefully moves into Steve's arms and lies on Steve's chest while Steve wraps his arms around him. They haven't done this since the war, on freezing winter nights when they would share warmth in their tent.

"I forgot how warm you were," Bucky says as he drifts off to sleep snuggled in Steve's arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has been commenting. I love hearing what you guys think.


	5. Chapter 5

They next day Bucky comes back looking much worse. He's got a head wound that is bleeding profusely and his skin is now littered with gashes to go with the bruises from the day before. He falls to the floor when the guards toss him in the cell, and this time he can't lift himself up. He's shaking violently curls up into a ball right where he fell.

"Buck!" Steve calls and goes over to him. He lifts him up and puts him in his lap, holding his head gingerly. The guards haven't left yet. They place water and bandages next to Steve.

"Clean him up," they tell him. As if he needed to be told. He would take good care of Bucky in any case.

First thing first, he gets Bucky to take a drink of the water. It takes a few tries because he is still shaking, but eventually he gets a long sip. After that, the water is used to clean Bucky up.

The head wound is the first to be cleaned. It looks a lot worse than it is. Head wounds tend to bleed a lot. But Steve tends to it first because the blood running down Bucky's face disturbs him. It makes him look extremely pale.

As he starts on the other gashes, he starts to talk to Bucky. "I'm sorry Buck," he says. "You shouldn't have to go through this. Not again. Not ever.

"I would gladly trade places with you. You've had your turn. Why is Novikov leaving me alone anyways? I should have to go through the same thing. I deserve it anyways. It's my fault. Everything you went through in the Red Room. It's all my fault.

“I should have caught you on that train. I was so close, just another few inches. I could have saved you years of pain if I have just reached a little farther, if I had been faster. I'm so so sorry." Steve bows his head. He's starting to cry.

"Shut up you dumb punk," Bucky spits out. He is obviously having trouble speaking. He is gritting his teeth, trying to will himself to stop shaking so he can talk. "It's not your fault. None of it is your fault. You couldn't have done anything more than what you did on that train. You didn't mean for any of this to happen to me. The blame doesn't fall on you. The blame falls on the Red Room. The blame falls on Novikov."

"It hurts seeing you in pain," Steve tells him. "I can't help laying awake at night thinking about what was done to you and how I could have prevented it. Even if I couldn't have caught you, I should have gone looking for you."

"You had no reason to believe I was alive," Bucky says. "That fall would have killed me if it hadn't been for Zola's experiments. And it would have been ludicrous to search for a dead body in enemy territory."

"But..." Steve tries.

"No," Bucky interrupts. "Stop blaming yourself.”

Steve falls silent. There is no point in continuing this conversation. Bucky won't relent, and Steve won't stop blaming himself. Neither is going to give ground.

Steve can't stand seeing Bucky like this. He cares so much about Bucky, he doesn't want him to be in pain. He needs Bucky to understand that.

"I love you," Steve suddenly blurts out, completely unplanned. This probably isn't the best place for confessions of this kind.

Bucky smiles up at him. "Yeah, I know that. I love you too."

What? Bucky must have misinterpreted what he said. Bucky probably thinks that he means that he loves him as a friend. But it's not like that. Sure, they are the best of friends, but that wasn't what he meant. These last few months, Steve has come to realize something that he probably should have seen long before. He cares about Bucky in a way that goes beyond friendship. He has fallen in love with his best friend. It is simultaneously the best and the worst thing that has ever happened to him. Realizing his love for Bucky has made everything better, but he has to love him from afar. There is no way that Bucky could love him back in that way.

It took Steve a long time to even realize his own sexuality. He likes girls, tried his hardest to get them to notice him when he was a tiny weakling. He loved Peggy. He wanted to spend his life with her. But there were also the confusing times when he found himself attracted to men as well. He would see couples together and be jealous, not of the guy for being with the girl, but of the girl for being with such a handsome man. That was something that Steve could never have.

But when he woke up from the ice, everything was different. The world had changed in his absence. Many people were more tolerant of different sexual and gender identities. He learned about bisexuality on the internet. He learned about how sexuality was more of a spectrum than a one or the other. He thought of himself as a 1 or a 2 on the Kinsey scale: mostly attracted to people of the opposite gender, but also attracted to some people of the same gender.

But Bucky was different. He came from the same era as Steve, and probably wasn't as tolerant of different sexualities as people of today. Sure, he probably wouldn't be disgusted at the idea, but it is different if a man tells you that he is in love with you in particular. Steve can’t possibly hope for the good fortune that Bucky would be understanding. He can't believe he just blurted that out.

Bucky is the straightest person he knows. He went out with so many girls back in the thirties. He was hansom and every girl wanted to be with him. He certainly took advantage of that. Steve knows he wouldn't be open to a homosexual relationship.

Which is why when he says that he loves Steve back, he can't possibly mean that in the way that Steve hopes. Steve couldn't dare to dream that would be the case. Now that Steve had started his confession, he had to explain it to Bucky.

"No," Steve says, "I mean..."

"Stop," Bucky says softly and turns away from Steve. He can't look him in the eye right now. "Not now."

Steve tries to search his expression, but he can't figure out what that was about. But he'll do what Bucky says. He doesn't want to hurt him anymore.

They curl up together again to share warmth in the cold dank cell and go to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!


	6. Chapter 6

The next day the guards come for both of them. They take Bucky away first. There was no need for restraints because he was still so weak. But Steve has been untouched since they got here. For him they use reinforced cuffs before they bring him out of the cell.

They bring into a dark room. There is white tile on the floor and a drain. One of the walls has a large window, but there are blinds blocking the view. Steve can see it is dark on the other side, so unless Steve's sense of time is really off, it is probably not a window to the outside.

Steve is cuffed to a chair in the middle of the room. The chair itself is bolted tightly to the floor. Several of the guards who brought him here leave the room. Two of them stay behind. Steve knows what is coming. He is surprised it didn't happen before. They are about to torture him for secrets about the Avengers. How to get past their securities and the like. Steve steels himself and waits for them to begin.

Several hours later, Steve feels like crap. The guards who were beating him had asked him several questions, but it didn't really seem like they cared about the answers. When he didn't answer any of their queries, they just kept going and started asking other questions. Steve had lasted hours, and he wasn't any closer to giving up secrets of the Avengers.

The guards stop interrogating him and leave the room. Steve is left alone in the room, cuffed to the chair. He once again checks the restraints, hoping to find a weakness while the guards are gone. No such luck. The bonds hold.

The guards come back carrying a folding chair. They put it down about two arms lengths away from Steve. The guards go to stand by the door as Novikov comes into the room and sits in the chair that was put out for him.

"Ah, Captain Rogers," Novikov begins, "Comfortable, are we?"

Steve growls at him, but doesn't say anything back. He tests his bonds trying to get at Novikov. This is the man that is torturing Bucky, and Steve would like to tear his throat out.

"Well then, Captain, I would like to know how to penetrate the defenses at Avenger's tower."

"No you wouldn't," Steve spits back. "You don't seem to care if I tell you that or not."

Novikov laughs. "Yes, well, very perceptive, Captain. It would be nice if you would just tell me, but it is not necessary. Your friend will find a way past the defenses for me."

"Bucky won't do shit for you," Steve tells him firmly.

Novikov just smiles at him. "We'll see, won't we, Captain?

"Your friend is going to be under my control soon enough. Just as he was the fist of Hydra, he will be my weapon that will cement my control over the Avengers."

"That's never going to happen," Steve informs him. "I won't let it happen."

"Ah, but Captain, you'll have no choice over the matter. You'll be quite dead."

Steve pauses. This is new. What is Novikov doing with him here if he doesn't want information and he plans to kill him.

"I never planned to capture you, Captain. That was just bonus. I was always planning on getting the Winter Soldier. He is of more use to me. I know the machine works on him, and quite effectively too. You, however, are more of a gamble. Dr. Erskine's serum works differently than Zola's. The one you have builds up the sense of self. It would make the chair less effective and the results unstable. I have no wish to make a weapon that could turn on me at any moment. No, your use to me is limited. As soon as I have the Winter Solider once more, you will be disposed of."

"This is supposed to make me help you?" Steve asks.

"I couldn't care less if you cooperated or not. That is not your function. But since you are here, I might as well have a little fun."

Novikov stands up and goes to the window. He flips a switch on the wall, and screams start filling the room. The blinds are lifted to reveal Bucky on the other side. He is suspended by his wrist in a room almost identical to the one Steve is in. He is surrounded by several guards, one of whom has a stun baton activated. The guard gets closers to Bucky and hits it with him again.

"No!" Steve yells as Bucky screams from the electricity coursing through his body. Steve pulls at his bonds as hard as he can, until blood starts dripping from his wrists where the cuffs dig into the skin. "Stop, please," he begs.

"See, this is entertaining," Novikov states as Steve sags back into his chair.

"You bastard," Steve tells him, "I'm going to kill you."

"Very entertaining indeed," he continues. "Unfortunately I have other business to attend to." He starts walking towards the door. "I hope you enjoy the show," he says as he leaves the room.

For the next half hour, Steve is left there cuffed to the chair, forced to watch and listen as Bucky is tortured. Steve pulls at his restraints with all his strength, but to no avail. He can't do anything to help Bucky, and it is killing him.

Finally, the guards come for him and pull him out of the room. Through the window he can see that Bucky is being taken down as well. He falls limply to the floor of his interrogation room after they remove the restraints on his wrists. Steve can't see any more as he is dragged out.

He is taken to another room and chained to the wall. It is dark, but he thinks he sees the outline of the chair on the far side of the room. He hopes he won't have to witness Bucky being put in the chair. He already has nightmares based on his imagination of how the thing works. The reality is probably much worse.

Bucky is dragged into the room and thrown down on the floor where he doesn't move. Close up, he looks much worse than he did from behind the window. He body is mottled with bruises and cuts. Steve can see the electricity burns from where stun batons were held to his skin.

"Buck," he calls, which gets the first stir of movement from Bucky. He turns to look at Steve and his face crumples at the sight of him.

"No," he whispers, his voice coming out as a rasp from all the screaming. "No, Steve, no," he cries softly. He struggles to get up, but he can't support his own weight and falls back to the floor.

Novikov strides in through the door and motions to the guards. They pick up Bucky by the hair and drag him to his knees facing Steve. Steve can see the pained look on his face when he sees how beaten up Steve is. He thinks that Bucky shouldn't worry about him when he is so much worse off himself.

Novikov starts speaking to Bucky. "You don't have to keep going through this you know," he says. "You can accept what you are and stop fighting the machine. You aren't this construct that you've created of an average citizen. You can never be what you were before, but you can be something greater. The Red Room made you perfect, the ultimate weapon. You should be proud of what you were. You can be that once more. All your fears will disappear and you will be confident in your mission. Accept your role and your pain will be gone. Just stop fighting the machine."

Bucky snarls the whole time during this speech. "Never," he spits out.

Novikov sighs. "Fine, it doesn't matter anyway. I will break through, it will just take longer. And for you, it will hurt a lot more."

Novikov turns and walks over to where Steve is chained up. "And because you won't cooperate, your first act under my control will be to kill Captain America."

Bucky's expression turns to one of pure fear. "No," he mouths quietly. He turns to look at Steve. There is pain in his eyes, more than when he was being physically tortured. Steve doesn't care as much about his own life at this moment, he just doesn't want to see that look on Bucky's face. He's going to kill Novikov with his bare hands.

"Put him in the machine."

Bucky snaps. Steve doesn't know how he has any strength left, but he is summoning it all right now. He kicks and flails at the guards, tries to free his arms from their grasp. It is all in vain. They drag him to the chair, screaming all the way.

When they reach the chair, they shove him into it and lock the restraints. He still kicks and screams until the moment he is locked in. He knows he won't escape now. The chair leans back and a device lowers down onto his head. His breathing is hard and labored, but he doesn't resist in any other way.

Steve doesn't want to watch, but he feels he has to. The chair turns on and electricity shoots through Bucky's brain. He starts screaming again. It's horrible to watch, but must be much worse to go through. Steve thinks he is going to be sick. His desire to choke the life out of Novikov is getting stronger by the second.

Finally, the machine stops pumping electricity into Bucky. The guards remove the restraints and drop Bucky to the floor. He retches and then starts to spasm. Steve has to look away. He can't continue to see his friend in so much pain. He wants to go over to him and help soothe him, but he's still chained to the damn wall.

After some time has past, Novikov starts barking orders at the guards in Russian. They go over to Bucky and start dragging him in Steve's direction. They stop a few feet from him and place Bucky up on his knees. But is still shaking and can barely hold himself upright.

Novikov says something to Bucky in Russian, but Steve's not sure Bucky is aware enough to understand. Then, to Steve's complete surprise, they hand Bucky a gun. Bucky takes it but just stares at it for a while. Novikov gets impatient and yells something at Bucky.

Bucky lifts the gun and points it at Steve's head.


	7. Chapter 7

Steve freezes for a second, but then starts to talk to Bucky. He remembers Bucky saying that the machine causes disorientation right afterwards, so he just has to remind Bucky who he is.

"Bucky, it's me, Steve," he says. "Bucky, look at me, you don't want to do this."

The gun pointing at Steve's head starts to waiver. Bucky's still shaking a bit from his time in the chair. His arm is particularly affected. Soon the gun drops out of Bucky's hand.

One of the guards backhands Bucky and he falls to the ground. The other guards start kicking him and he curls up to protect himself.

Steve pulls on his bonds. "No," he shouts, "Stop." They don't listen to him at all and he is unable to get out of his restraints.

Novikov barks another order in Russian and the guards finally stop kicking Bucky. They pick him up and start to drag him off. He is bloody and beaten and Steve can't look at him.

After Bucky is taken out, Steve is removed from the chains on the wall and put into reinforced handcuffs. They take him back to the cell.

Steve paces furiously, while he stews over what happened. Bucky didn't seem to recognize him. What if the chair had worked? Steve hopes that it was just the immediate disorientation of the chair that caused Bucky to almost shoot him. Certainly Novikov thinks that having Bucky shoot Steve would finally break him.

But he had dropped the gun. Hopefully that means that Bucky knew who he was and couldn't shoot.

After an hour or so, Bucky is brought back to the cell. He is unconscious and he looks even worse than he did last time Steve saw him. Novikov is going to kill him if he keeps this up.

Once again the guards leave water and bandages. Steve cleans Bucky's wounds and he cries as he does it.

How long will it take for Bucky to break? God Steve hates himself for thinking that, but everyone has their breaking point. But Bucky is strong. He made it through seventy years of torture and managed to come out the other side and find himself again.

Bucky isn't exactly the same man Steve knew before, but who would be after everything that happened. Bucky is more reserved than he used to be, but he can still laugh and joke with the other Avengers. If someone can go through everything Bucky did and come back, than he is strong enough to fight this, isn't he?

Bucky slowly starts to shift awake. Steve removes a strand of hair from his face and he looks up at Steve. This is the moment of truth. Does Bucky remember him?

"Steve?" Bucky croaks. Oh thank God.

"Yeah, Bucky, it's me," he replies. "You're going to be all right." Steve just wants to soothe Bucky of all his pain. He knows that Bucky must be freaking out about what happened, about what Novikov plans to make him do. Steve's job is to calm Bucky down, keep the conversation light.

"Steve..." Bucky begins, but Steve cuts him off.

"No permanent damage, right?" he says. "The Avengers will come soon and then we'll get a nice long rest period. Wouldn't you like that?"

"Steve..." Bucky tries again. "Listen to me."

"Tony will probably call us lazy layabouts. Living in his tower but not doing any Avengers work."

"Steve!" Bucky practically yells. Finally, Steve shuts up.

Bucky doesn't start talking right away, he looks like he is gathering up his strength to talk. In the silence, Steve hears a small sniffle from Bucky.

"Steve, they're going to use me to kill you." Steve looks away. He can't look Bucky in the eye. He wants to tell him that it's bullshit, but Steve's not so sure he can say it convincingly, and that would make Bucky feel worse.

Bucky continues. "You can't let that happen."

Steve looks back at Bucky with a confused look. He doesn't know what Bucky means. He searches Bucky's face for the meaning. Bucky's face has crumbled and there are tears in his eyes now.

"Steve, please," Bucky pleads.

Steve realizes what he means like a punch to the stomach. "No, no, absolutely not."

"Steve, you have to." Buck continues to plead.

"No," Steve tells him firmly, "That's not an option."

"Better me than you," Bucky tells him softly.

Steve is openly sobbing now, and Bucky isn't faring much better. "Never," Steve says. He looks into Bucky's eyes, Bucky holds his gaze steady, staring him down. "You can't ask that of me Buck. It would kill me."

"No matter how much you keep saying it Steve, the Avengers aren't coming to save us. They don't know where we are, they won't get here in time."

"You gotta have hope, Bucky," Steve begs him, "They'll find us. You just gotta hold on a little longer"

"You don't understand, Steve," Bucky tells him. "I'm already losing it." Bucky turns his head away, he can't look at Steve right now.

"Earlier, when I came out of the machine, I didn't know who I was for a while. They were telling me to shoot you, and I almost did. I almost followed orders on instinct. I only dropped the gun because I was too weak to hold it up any longer."

"Bucky," Steve begins, "You're stronger than you think you are. You didn't shoot the gun before you dropped it. You're still you."

"I'm not though. I have gaps in my memory," Bucky explains. "For instance, what was my favorite story to tell?"

Steve hesitates, not sure where Bucky is going with this, but knowing that he won't like it. "How we met."

"Yeah, that much I remember," Bucky says. "But I don't remember what the story is. I have no idea how we met."

Steve's heart breaks a little at this. That can't be true. Not after everything Bucky went through to get his memories back. "It's got to be somewhere in there," Steve tells him. "It was one of the first things you remembered when you got back. Just try to search for it."

Bucky sighs, but closes his eyes and concentrates. "We were young?" he asks.

"Yeah, that's right"

"Did we meet at school?" Bucky asks.

Steve thinks he's going to break down and sob all over Bucky. "No, Buck, we didn't meet at school."

Bucky lets out a frustrated noise. "I told you, it's gone. Pretty soon I won't be myself anymore. I would rather die than let that happen, you know that."

Steve does know that, but he can't let Bucky convince him. It's too atrocious to think about.

"What do you think Novikov is going to do with me if you're dead," Steve asks. "What you're asking me to do, it wouldn't save me anyway."

"Steve..." Bucky begs with everything he's got.

"No," Steve cuts him off firmly, "We're not talking about this anymore."

Bucky rolls over in Steve lap and cries.


	8. Chapter 8

The next day they take Bucky again but leave Steve alone. He instead is left to stew in his own thoughts and worry about Bucky. Bucky was not doing well. Yesterday he said he almost lost it. He’s losing memory; the chair is starting to work no matter how hard he fights. The stunt with the gun really got to him, made him more afraid than he had been. Would today be the day he turned back into the Winter Soldier?

And where the fuck are the Avengers? Steve thought they would be out of here by now. Is Bucky right that they’re not coming for them? Please let him be wrong.

Later they come for Steve as well. They take him to the room with the machine and chain him to the wall again. This time, Bucky is already in the chair. When Bucky sees him, he starts to fight against the restraints again, but they hold firm. Bucky finally stops and just stares at Steve. Steve knows he is thinking about what happened yesterday with the gun. It appears that Novikov plans to repeat that demonstration.

The chair starts to bend backwards and Bucky’s breathing picks up. Steve knows what is going to happen next, but he still isn’t prepared. Bucky screams through gritted teeth as the machine tries to extract his memories. Steve forces himself to watch, though he wants to retch at the sight.

Finally, the machine cools down and Bucky stops screaming. Just as yesterday, Bucky is shaking from the electricity. The guards and scientist leave him in the chair and go about their business. This time they leave him there for much longer. They wait until the shaking has stopped and Bucky’s breathing has evened out. Then they call Novikov.

Novikov strides into the room and the guards immediately grab Bucky and drag him over to where Steve is chained up. Since Bucky has been out of the machine for longer, he is steadier than he was yesterday. Novikov says something to Bucky and gives him the gun. Bucky doesn’t hesitate to point the gun at Steve.

But then he stops. He doesn’t fire the gun. Instead he just sits there pointing the gun at Steve. His eyes are blank and there is no sign of recognition in them.

Steve decides it is time to restart his memory. “Hey Bucky,” he says, “It’s me Steve, you remember me. You don’t want to do this.” Still no recognition from Bucky, but he also still doesn’t fire. Novikov is getting upset and shouting orders. Steve just keeps on going. “You have to remember Bucky, you and me. I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.”

Something in Bucky’s eyes flickers. Recognition of the phrase. Suddenly the gun swings around at points at Novikov. Bucky pulls the trigger, nothing happens. _Of course_ , Steve thinks, _why would you give a loaded gun to someone with uncertain loyalty?_

Steve assumes that Bucky’s noncompliance will lead to more punishment like yesterday. But instead of going for Bucky, they come for Steve. They start punching and kicking and, chained to the wall, he can’t do anything to stop the blows.

Bucky is being held back by the guards, “No,” he yells, “No, Steve, no.” He is trying his hardest to get to Steve, but the guards drag him away. He yells at them to stop hurting Steve the whole way out of the room. Steve can still hear him screaming down the hallway when a blow to the head knocks him unconscious.

 

* * *

 

Steve wakes up to find Bucky treating his wounds. He is surprised that Bucky seems to be doing so well. He was still pale and shaking just a little, but he was sitting up and moving on his own.

“Hey,” Steve croaks at Bucky. “How are you doing?”

“How am _I_ doing? Jesus Christ Steve you just got the shit kicked out of you and you’re asking how _I_ am doing?”

“Yes,” Steve says. “I know how I’m doing, I want to know about you. You’re hurting too. I know you are trying to hide it, but I can still see it.” After waking up a little more, Steve and see the strain in Bucky’s face whenever he moves. He using the skills to ignore pain and carry on that he learned as the Winter Solider. Steve needs to get him to stop.”

“I’m fine Steve, you’re worse off right now.”

“I’m not so sure that’s true,” Steve responds. “So answer me truthfully. How are you doing? Both physically and mentally.”

Bucky sighs and sags against a wall so he doesn’t have to support his own weight anymore. “I feel like shit Steve, as I’m sure you know. But I’m OK for now.”

“Mentally?” Steve probes.

“Mentally? I’m a basket case. They’re frying my brain and any day I’m going to shoot you in the head. So how do you think I’m doing?”

“I think you need to calm down,” Steve answers. “Why are you pushing yourself so hard?”

“Because,” Bucky begins more calmly, slumped against the wall, “It’s my fault you got hurt. You only got captured because they were out to get me. They’re hurting you to get to me.” He hangs his head and fights back the tears. “I’m sorry.”

“Bucky,” Steve tells him, “That’s the dumbest thing that has ever come out of your mouth. So dumb, in fact, that it sounds like it came out of my mouth.” That gets a small smile out of Bucky. “We seem to have this never ending circle of blame going on. I blame myself for not catching you on the train. You blame yourself for almost killing me on the hellicarrier. Now Novikov is using it against us. He’s making us watch the other get tortured because he knows that’s more painful for us than the physical pain.

“You showed a lot of strength and courage today when you pointed that gun at Novikov. You had no idea what would happen.”

“I figured it might not be loaded,” Bucky explains, “But I though they’d punish me. Instead they started beating you and haven’t touched me since.”

“That’s them trying to get into your head, Bucky. You can’t let them.”

Bucky gets up and goes back over to Steve. He puts Steve’s head on his lap like Steve did for him the other day. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.” He brushes a strand of hair from Steve’s forehead. “Especially not because of me.”

Steve stays still, not wanting this moment of closeness with Bucky to end. He takes a deep breath. “And why is that?” he asks quickly, looking Bucky directly in the eyes.

Bucky doesn’t break the eye contact. “Because we’re friends,” he answers simply.

“Is that all?” Steve murmurs almost silently. If it weren’t for Bucky’s enhanced hearing, he might not have picked it up, but Steve knows he can.

Bucky looks away, staring at the wall far across the room. “Steve,” he pleads, “Please stop.”

Steve isn’t going to take that as an answer now. Not when this might be the last time he can tell Bucky how he feels. “Why can’t we talk about this?”

At this point he thinks that Bucky must know what he means. Maybe Bucky doesn’t want to talk about it because he doesn’t feel the same way and wants to spare Steve’s feelings.

“Because it wouldn’t help anything,” Bucky responds. “And I need my head clear to resist the chair.”

“What does that mean?” Steve asks him. “How does this affect the chair?”

“I can’t really explain it,” Bucky tells him. “Just trust me, and please drop it.”

Steve doesn’t want to back down this time. He’s sure Bucky knows what Steve wants to say, but won’t let him just come out and say it. It must be a rejection Bucky is avoiding. “We have to talk about this eventually, you can’t avoid it forever.”

“Sure, Steve,” Bucky relents. “As soon as we get out of this mess and we are safe at home, we can talk about whatever it is you want to talk about.”

Steve hopes that Bucky means that, but he thinks it is a copout. Bucky has told him repeatedly that he doesn’t believe they are going to get rescued by the Avengers. In that case, he just agreed to put off the discussion until a future date that will never come. That way they’ll never have to talk about it.


	9. Chapter 9

Steve wakes up and Bucky is already gone. He wonders how he could have slept through him being taken, but when he tries to sit up, he remembers how broken he is. His advanced healing has done a good job of patching him up, but he’s still unsteady as he tries to get to his feet. He stretches out his joints and takes stock of his wounds. Not too bad, he’ll live

Suddenly, the steel door opens with a loud creak. Immediately, Steve knows that something is different. He can hear shouting in Russian and gunfire in the distance. He braces himself for whatever is going to come through that door.

It’s Black Widow.

“Oh, thank God it’s you.” Steve tells her. “We have to get to Bucky right away.”

“Woah, hold on Steve,” she says. “You aren’t going any where other than the medevac. You look like shit. The rest of the team can handle it.”

“We don’t have time to argue about this. Please, open the cell door and let me get to Bucky. I know exactly where’s he’s been held. Please.

Natasha puts her hand on her hip. She’s not moving to open the cell. “I should leave you in there until the fighting is done, teach you to listen.”

“Nat, listen to me. Novikov is using the chair on him. He could be frying Bucky’s brain as we speak. Let. Me. Out.”

Natasha’s eyes widen as he says this. She knows all about the chair. She was in the Red Room too. She hurriedly moves to open the cell door.

“I thought that you took care of the chairs,” she says as get opens the door. Steve is out the door the second it opens.

“There was a backup,” he tells her as he walks away from her.

“Don’t leave me here, Steve. You can use me.” Steve can easily outrun her, put a lot of distance between them and he’d get to Bucky faster. But she’s right that he could use her help. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s in a weakened state and not ready to take down all the guards without help.

“OK, follow me.” He takes off at a mildly loping speed, which for Natasha would be a full out sprint. He heads down the winding corridors like he’s honing in on Bucky.

He needs to get to Bucky. Finally the Avengers have come, please let it not be too late. He doesn’t know how long Bucky has been gone. Has he been in the chair yet?

Some guards come out and block their way. Steve practically slams into the first one, knocking him off balance. He’s out with a swift kick to the head. Natasha’s got her legs around another one’s neck and is flipping him to the ground. Steve goes for the last guard. He’s not graceful in his fighting like Natasha. He can, but this time he goes for raw power, throws everything he’s got into a punch. The guard topples over, knocked out or dead, Steve doesn’t care.

He continues on his quest for Bucky, Natasha still hot on his heels. Finally he reaches the door to the room that contains the chair. It’s locked, so he backs up and slams his full force into the door to smash it open.

The scene before him is not the one he wanted to see. Bucky is strapped into the chair. Thankfully he alert, which means it hasn’t been activated yet. Not so thankfully, Novikov is there standing at the controls himself.

“Stop right there, Captain, if you want your friend to live,” Novikov demands.

Steve growls, but stays put. He’s not sure what switch Novikov is holding, but he’s going to take the threat seriously. Bucky is struggling out of his bonds, but he doesn’t look particularly scared.

“Bullshit,” Steve spits at him. “What’s stopping me from ripping out your throat?”

“This switch,” Novikov gestures to the one he’s holding. “I can flip this to overload. The machine will turn your friend’s brain to mush long before you can stop it.”

Bucky looks up from his struggles. Novikov has his attention now. More than anything, this is what restrains Steve from acting to quickly.

“What do you want?” Steve asks him through gritted teeth.

“I want out,” Novikov tells him. “Promise me safety and freedom.”

Steve is torn. He wants Novikov to pay for what he’s done, but he can’t risk Bucky anymore. If what Novikov threatens is true, this entire rescue could be for nothing.

Steve is saved from making his decision right away when some of Novikov’s guards comes piling into the room. Steve spares one last glance at Bucky before he joins Natasha in the fight to regain control of the room. He keeps Novikov in the corner of his eye in case he tries to run, but he doesn’t move at all. Just stands there with his hand on the switch, waiting to see how the battle turns out.

Soon, Hawkeye enters the fray. Steve takes this opportunity to escape the fight and go to Novikov.

“Stop,” he says as Steve approaches him. “You kill me, I’ll kill your pal Bucky.” Steve isn’t taking it anymore. He lunges for Novikov. He, seeing the attack coming, flips the switch, turns and shoot the panel.

Immediately, Bucky’s screams fill the room. Everything stops for a moment, then the fighting begins again. Steve reaches Novikov and slams him against the wall. He drops to the floor and doesn’t move again. Steve can finish him off later, right now he needs to get to Bucky.

The machine is turned on. Steve has absolutely no idea which buttons do what. They only think he recognizes is the switch that Novikov just activated, and it’s been shot to bits. He messes with some other switches and levers for a second, but nothing seems to effect Bucky’s screams. So he abandons that approach and goes for the chair itself.

He goes to the machine, which mostly consists of wires and panels around Bucky’s head. Steve doesn’t know what does what, but he does know that there is electricity pumping into Bucky’s brain via the wires by his head. He rips them out, all at once, just pries the whole machine apart in a rage.

Bucky stops screaming, but he doesn’t stop writhing. Steve lifts him swiftly out of the chair. He lifts him on to the floor, head and neck gently supported by his hands atop his lap.

By this time the guards are down. Iron man has entered the room, walking calmly with his visor up. Steve can only assume this means that the fighting is over, the Avengers have won. He can only be so grateful with a lapful of still shaking Bucky.

“Are you two alright?” Tony asks, looking at Steve and Bucky. Steve knows he must look a mess, but all he can think about is Bucky.

“Did you bring field medics?” Steve asks.

“Yes,” Tony replies, “I’ll have them get straight here. The base is clear, we have control.

Steve caresses Bucky’s face, still shaking. Steve’s not sure if it’s just Bucky or if his own hand is also shaking from adrenalin.

Suddenly, the shaking gets worse, Bucky seems to be spasming, his whole body seizing up. He starts retching, and Steve turns he head to the side so that he doesn’t aspirate his own vomit.

“Tony!” Steve yells. “Get the medics here now!” He’s trying to hold Bucky down, but he’s not even sure if that is the best thing to do or if he is making it worse.

“Holy shit,” Tony mutters behind him. Not encouraging words, and probably not meant for his ears. “The medics will be here any second,” he tells Steve.

The medics finally poor in the door, and take Bucky from Steve’s lap. Steve stands up while they are working on Bucky. He feels a little unsteady on his feet. One of the medics tries to go to him, but he wave’s them off. Right now they need to be concerned with Bucky.

“Come on, Cap,” Natasha tells him as she tries to escort him a little further back so the medics have room to work. He goes reluctantly, not wanting to be any further from Bucky than he has to be.

“Come on, Buck,” is his only response. Bucky has to live through this. After everything they’ve been through, it can’t end here. He has to live.

It’s the last thought in his head before he collapses to the ground and passes out.


	10. Chapter 10

Steve wakes up in the hospital. He knows he's in a hospital before he opens his eyes. The beeping of the heart monitor and the fact that he feels like shit are obvious giveaways. He opens his eyes and tries to get up immediately.

"Woah, woah there big guy," a slightly blurry version of Stark tries to tell him. "You shouldn't be getting up right now."

"Bucky," is all that Steve manages to spit out.

"Is stable," Natasha tells him. "There's nothing you can do except lay here and rest."

Together, Tony and Natasha manage to push him back on the bed, a sign of just how weak he is right now. He gives up and lets them do it. He sinks back onto the bed and feels like he won't ever get up.

"You're an idiot," Tony tells him. "A brave idiot, but still and idiot."

"Tony!" Nat admonishes.

“What? Tell me I’m wrong.”

Natasha sighs. “You’re not wrong.”

“Hey,” Steve protests. “I thought you were on my side.”

“You should have let us do the fighting,” Natasha tells him. “You were in no shape do anything but go directly to the medevac.”

“You didn’t stop me,” Steve points out.

“Could I have?”

Steve considers that. “No, probably not.”

“See. Not my fault.”

Steve chuckles a little. It’s nice to be back with the Avengers. He just wants to be back with Bucky too.

“How’s Bucky doing?” Steve asks again.

“Don’t worry about him,” Natasha tells him. “He’s alive.”

“Is he going to stay that way,” Steve asks. He knows the answer though, they would have told him if he was in critical condition.

Natasha and Tony give each other a look before answering. “Yeah,” Tony says, “Of course he’ll live.”

Steve has an uneasy feeling about all this. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“You need to rest Steve,” Natasha tells him instead.

“God dammit, Nat. If you don’t tell me what’s wrong with Bucky right now, I swear I will get up out of this bed and tear the hospital apart until I find him.”

Natasha and Tony give each other that look again. This time Steve thinks it is a question about who is going to give him the bad news.

Tony loses. “Bucky’s stable, he’ll live. But…”

“But what?” Steve asks. “Spit it out.”

“He’s in a coma. The doctors don’t know when or if he’s going to come out of it.”

It hits Steve hard. He lies back down into the bed feeling the weight of those words. A coma. A coma he may never come out of. Steve failed him. He didn’t get to Bucky in time.

“The machine that wipes his memories was put into overload,” Tony explains. “It caused major swelling in the brain. He won’t wake up until the swelling goes down.”

“Where is he?” Steve asks more calmly.  

Natasha speaks up. “You shouldn’t be getting out of bed.”

“Please,” Steve says. “I need to know.”

Natasha thinks about it for a few moments, but Steve knows she’s feeling guilty for not telling him the truth when he first woke up. “He’s upstairs. But you can’t do anything. Injuring yourself further won’t help Bucky.”

“I have an idea,” Tony chimes in. “Bucky’s in stable condition right?”

“Right,” Nat answers.

“Well why can’t the two supersoldiers be roomies.”

Steve brightens at the idea. He needs to see Bucky now, but he feels like he was hit by a ton of bricks. For all his posturing, he doesn’t think that he could actually get out of the bed successfully. But if they bring him to Bucky, he could watch over him and be there the moment he wakes up.

“OK,” Natasha says. “I go see if I can arrange that.”

After way too long a way, Natasha comes back and tells him that they can move him to Bucky’s room. They have to move him onto a gurney to take him upstairs, and Steve thinks his sides are going to spit open as the orderlies move him over. But it’s all worth it if he can see Bucky.

They wheel him into Bucky’s room, and they have to repeat the procedure of moving him to the bed. Natasha follows him into the room, but Stark takes his leave. After they’re done, Steve takes a long look at Bucky who is in the bed to his right.

Bucky doesn’t look as bad as Steve thought he would. He looks like he’s sleeping peacefully, which should be a sign that’s something wrong because Bucky never sleeps peacefully. Steve can still see the cuts and bruises on Bucky’s chest, remnants of his torture at the hands of Novikov. He has and IV in his right arm, a heart monitor on his finger, and electrodes on his head, but those are the only medical devices attached to him.

“He’s breathing on his own,” Natasha tells him. “Which the doctors say is a very good sign. But the swelling in his brain is keeping him from waking up. They already took him to surgery to release the pressure, but they may need to do it again.”

As normal as Bucky looks, there is a fight for his life going on inside his brain. They say Bucky is stable enough to live, but if he doesn’t wake up, is that a life? Steve will be here by Bucky’s side in any case, but he hopes to God that Bucky will wake up.

“The longer that he’s in the coma, the less likely it is that he will wake up. The doctors hope that he’ll wake up in the next few days as the pressure goes down.”

Steve doesn’t want to hear this right now. He just wants to believe that Bucky will be OK.

“Do you want me to leave you alone?” Natasha asks.

“Yes, please,” Steve tells her. He feels like he might burst into tears at any moment, and he doesn’t want an audience to his grief.

“OK,” Natasha says. “Remember that you have a phone. You can call me anytime if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Natasha,” he tells her earnestly.

Natasha leaves the room and he goes back to looking at Bucky. He doesn’t think he’ll take his eyes off him as long as he is by his side.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's going to be painfully obvious that I know nothing about comas. Bear with me.

Bucky doesn’t wake up.

Steve stays by his side for months. He heals pretty quickly and gets discharged, but he doesn’t go home. He stays in Bucky’s room, showers in the patient bathroom, and sleeps on the couch next to Bucky’s bed. Each day he prays that Bucky will wake up, and each day he is disappointed.

The swelling in Bucky’s brain went down in a few weeks, but the damage was already done. Every day that goes by it is less likely for Bucky to wake up. But Steve doesn’t give up hope. He can’t.

The worst part is the news he got one month after they were rescued. The doctors did some scans of Bucky’s brain, and found damage to the areas that control memory. Not surprising since that was the area targeted by the machine, but still hard to swallow. The doctors said that even if Bucky wakes up, he might not remember anything.

Steve doesn’t know if he could stand going through that again. It was so hard the first time that Bucky didn’t remember him. But slowly over time, Bucky came to remember. Little bits and pieces of their life together would come back to him. He would ask Steve if they were dreams or real. Every time Bucky gained a new memory, Steve’s heart lightened a bit.

But this time will be different. The doctors say the damage is so extensive that if they’re right he wouldn’t be able to remember anything about his life, and wouldn’t ever get those memories back. If the doctors are correct, then Bucky is already gone.

Getting Bucky back but having him not remember would crush Steve. The only saving grace is that Bucky also wouldn’t remember his time with Hydra. He wouldn’t remember being a weapon for them. He wouldn’t remember being tortured by them, or by Novikov. He would be able to live a life free of the memories that keep him up at night. But selfishly, it would still break Steve’s heart.

Steve thinks of the confession he wanted to make during their time imprisoned together. Bucky got him to hold off until they were out of there. Now it seems that they’ll never have that conversation. Steve wonders if that is what Bucky was expecting to happen. He knows that Bucky never expected to get out of there in one piece. Delaying the conversation meant not having it at all. Steve wishes that he had told Bucky anyway. He wanted so bad to let him know. If only Bucky would wake up, he could tell him, memories or no.

Natasha comes to visit him often, bringing flowers to brighten up the place, and snacks to make sure that Steve is eating properly. Hospital food isn’t enough to sustain anyone, much less a supersoldier with an enhanced metabolism.

“You need to get out of here Steve,” she tells him on one of her visits. “This place is depressing. It’s not good for you to be here all the time.”

“I want to be here when he wakes up,” he tells her.

“The doctors will call you the second anything happens,” Natasha counters. “Go home. Get some rest.”

Steve sighs. He knows Natasha is right. He hasn’t been sleeping well, and even his supersoldier body can’t go on like this forever. So he relents to Natasha’s request.

“OK, I’ll go home for a little while. I could use a good nap.”

“Good,” Natasha approves. “Don’t come back here for 24 hours.”

 

* * *

 

For the next few weeks he lessens his time at the hospital, a little bit at a time. He still refuses to go back on active duty, but he gets out more now. He runs, he actually sees his friends, and his sleep is getting better. He’ll never sleep soundly as long as Bucky is still in the coma, but he is starting to accept his friend’s condition.

Bucky has shown no sign of waking up. Every day that Steve visits him he looks the same, peacefully sleeping his life away. Steve has heard that people in comas might be able to hear you and would benefit from you talking to them, but he can’t bring himself to do it. He knows that if he talks to Bucky, his confession will slip through his lips, and he doesn’t want to do it like this.

He hasn’t told anyone else either. He feels like it is private. Especially if Bucky rejects him, he’d rather it not get out. This is all supposing that Bucky wakes up. It’s looking less likely every day.

 

* * *

 

He’s out running when he gets the call from the doctor.

“Captain Rogers?” the doctors asks. Steve wishes he would just get past the formalities and get on with what he has to say.

“Yes.”

“I’m calling from County General Hospital…”

Steve interrupts. “Is this about Bucky?” he asks briskly.

“Uh, yes, a Sgt. Barnes,” the doctor says. “You’re on his emergency contact list.”

“Is he waking up?” he needs the doctor to just say it. If he doesn’t, Steve’s going to think that something’s wrong.

“Maybe, we don’t know for sure. There’s some unusual brain activity. It’s more than we’ve seen from him so far.”

“I’m coming over,” Steve tells him.

“No need to rush over here. He won’t wake up right away. We’re not even sure what we’re seeing yet.”

Steve doesn’t care. He’ll run straight to the hospital if he has to. “I’m still coming.”

“Alright. We can discuss Sgt. Barnes’s condition more when you arrive.

“Thank you,” Steve says, and really means it.

Steve sprints home. When he gets in the door, he doesn’t bother to take a shower, but he strips off his sweaty clothes and changes with lightning fast speed. He’s on his bike heading to the hospital in five minutes flat.

When he gets to the hospital, the doctor is already in Bucky’s room, checking up on him.

“Ah, Cpt. Rogers,” the doctor says looking up from the monitors when Steve enters the door. He looks like he’s in a good mood, so that is encouraging.

“What’s going on?” Steve asks him.

“We’ve been doing some brains scans,” the doctor informs him. “There is some encouraging activity, especially around the hippocampus.”

“What does that mean?” He wishes the doctor would stop speaking in medical terms and get to the point.

“It looks like he’s healing,” the doctor replies. “I never would have expected it from a normal person, but perhaps his enhanced healing capabilities are finally kicking in.”

“Will he wake up?” Steve asks hopefully.

“Only time will tell. But the chances of that have raised significantly.”

“What are his chances then?” He feels like he’s interrogating the doctor, but he needs answers.

“I don’t like to guess,” the doctor says hesitantly. “But I’d say he has a 75% chance of waking up in the next few days.

“What about his memory?” Waking up is the first step, but his memories are important too.

“I have no way of telling,” the doctor says. “But if the damage to his hippocampus keeps healing at this rate, it’s possible he could retain his memories. It’s also possible that the damage was too extensive in the first place and the memories are already gone.”

Steve knows that he needs to prepare himself for the possibility that Bucky could possibly not remember him. But right now he’s only focused on the fact that Bucky could wake up, that his chances are better than ever.

He calls Natasha as soon as the doctor leaves. She picks up after one ring. “Bucky’s waking up,” he tells her. It’s not strictly true, since the doctor said he might not, but Steve’s going to keep believing that Bucky will wake up, and soon.

“Do you need me to come?” Natasha says kindly.

“Yeah.” He hadn’t realized his voice was shaking, but Natasha picked up on it right away.

“I’ll be right over. Then you can tell me everything.”

She gets there in just under 30 minutes. Clint is with her and Steve finds he’s glad to have the extra company. He quickly summarizes everything the doctor had said to him.

“So he still may not wake up?” Natasha says. “You have to prepare yourself for that, Steve.”

“No,” he replies. “I’m not going to lose hope by preparing for the worst.”

Natasha sighs, but lets it go. She and Clint sit down on the opposite side of Bucky’s bed and to wait with Steve.

“So this is going to take a while,” Clint says. “Anyone up for a game of cards?”

 

* * *

 

Steve goes back to practically living at the hospital. Various Avengers rotate in and out to spend time with him. They don’t seem very optimistic, and Steve sometimes wishes they would just go away. But he’s glad that they care about him and for Bucky.

Sam comes up especially from DC and spends the most time with him. He encourages Steve to go home, at least for short breaks, and Steve obliges, if only to shut him up.

After a few days, the monitors start beeping. Steve wakes up fully from the half dose he was in and frantically looks at the monitors.

“What does that mean?” Sam asks.

“I don’t know,” Steve says, freaking out a bit. “Is it a bad sign?”

The doctor comes in shortly and turns off the monitors. “Nothing to worry about,” he says after seeing Steve’s expression. “In fact, this is a good sign. His heart rate is increasing. It’s looking like he might wake up soon.”

Steve is speechless. Even after all his hoping a praying, he can’t believe what he just heard. Bucky is waking up.

“Really?” Sam says. “That’s great news.” He turns to Steve who is still stunned at the news and smiles brightly at him.

Steve is so shocked he can’t smile back. He just sits back down and takes Bucky’s right hand in his. “Come on, Buck,” he says. “Come back.”

 

* * *

 

Steve freaks out the first time he sees Bucky move. Bucky barely twitches his eye, but Steve frantically insists the doctor has to come and see.

“I believe Sgt. Barnes will wake up in the next few days,” he tells Steve.

“Days?” Steve asks. “Why so long.”

“He’ll be disoriented at first from the coma. It will take him a while to get back to normal. Don’t worry if he says something odd or doesn’t know where he is. It’s all normal unless it lasts too long.”

Steve tries to breathe normally. He’s going to have to not freak out when Bucky acts weird. The doctor can’t come running every time Bucky moves.

It’s twelve hours before Bucky moves again. He groans and shifts a bit but doesn’t open his eyes. A few hours after that he does open them, but he doesn’t seem to see anything and doesn’t respond when Steve calls to him. Clint, who was taking his turn sitting with Steve, has to keep him from badgering Bucky and worrying himself sick.

“Relax,” he says. “Bucky will wake up in his own time.”

 

* * *

 

Natasha is with him with Bucky finally wakes up. Steve is up on his feet in a flash when he hears him stirring. Bucky opens his eyes and lifts his head just a fraction of an inch and looks around.

“Wha…” he croaks out. His voice is rough from disuse. He lays is head back down and closes his eyes again. Steve thinks that he’s going back to sleep, but he opens them once more. He looks extremely tired, but keeps looking around.

“Bucky?” Steve asks tentatively. “How are you feeling?”

Bucky licks his lips. His mouth must be extremely dry. He opens his mouth. “Who?” he says.

Steve feels like he could be knocked back off his feet from the simple word. Does Bucky not recognize him? Does he not remember?

“It’s Steve,” he tells him. “I’m here for you Bucky.”

Bucky closes his eyes and turns his head away from Steve. “No, don’t.” he says.

“Don’t what?” Steve thinks he’s going to start crying at any moment.

Bucky doesn’t respond. He just keeps his head turned until he falls back asleep like that.

Steve looks up at Natasha. “That can’t be good,” he says with a worried expression.

“The doctor said he would be disoriented. Please don’t freak out on me.” Steve grimaces. He knows he’s been a pain for the last few days, but he doesn’t know how to contain this one. Bucky not only didn’t recognize him, he turned away from him.

Natasha gets him to sit down and breathe. “You don’t know what that was about,” she tells him. “Just wait and see what happens when he’s fully awake.” Steve knows she is right, but he can’t help but be worried.

 

* * *

 

Steve is asleep on the couch when Tony shakes him awake. The only way he was able to sleep was if someone else was keeping an eye on Bucky. If he’s being woken, then something is happening.

“Thought you might want to be awake for this,” Tony tells him. “Your boy’s waking up.” Steve looks up to see Bucky’s eyes fluttering. He is turning his head from side to side restlessly.

He rushes over to Bucky’s side. “Bucky?” he calls. Bucky doesn’t respond but his eyes open. He looks around the room. His eyes look foggy. “Buck?” Steve calls again.

That gets his attention and his head swivels to lock onto Steve’s face. He blinks several times, then stares steadily at Steve’s face.

This is the moment when Steve has been both waiting for and dreading. The moment when he finds out whether or not Bucky remembers him.

Bucky swallows and opens his mouth to talk. “Steve?” he croaks out. “Where…” he looks around again, then goes back to Steve. “What happened?”

Steve feels a great relief. Bucky is still a bit disorientated, but he seems to recognize him. “You were in a coma, Buck. But you’re going to be fine.”

“OK,” Bucky says and closes his eyes again.


	12. Chapter 12

It takes two weeks for Bucky to fully get back to normal. For much of that time he is so disoriented that he doesn’t know where he is. He often thinks he’s with Hydra or still a prisoner of Novikov. It explains what he said Steve the first time he woke up. He didn’t know who Steve was and thought he was going to be tortured again. It breaks Steve’s heart watching him struggle through the dissociation.

The good news is that if he remembers Novikov, he probably remembers everything else. He has lucid moments where he knows who Steve is and seems glad to have him there. Steve doesn’t leave his side and lives for these moments.

As he gets better, Bucky starts to get tired of being in the hospital. Today is one of those days that Steve practically has to restrain him from getting out of his bed and leaving.

“I feel fine,” he tells Steve.

“I seriously doubt that, Bucky. I see you cringing at the overhead lights.”

“OK, so I’ve got a headache, nothing new. Doesn’t mean I have to stay in this place.”

“Yesterday you didn’t know where you were,” Steve reminds him. Bucky grumbles something about how it wasn’t for long, but he knows that the doctors won’t let him out until he shows no signs of disorientation.

“I gotta get out of here,” he tells Steve. “I’m going to go crazy.”

“I’ll get your wheelchair, we can take a spin around the ward,” Steve suggests.

“I can walk,” Bucky declares as he throws aside his sheets and moves to get out of bed.

Steve stops him before he fully stands up. “No you don’t,” he says. “You’ve been laying in bed for months. You’re not as fit as you were before. You’ll need physical therapy. That combined with your headaches…”

“I’m fine,” Bucky disagrees. “I don’t need coddling.”

“Do you want to go for a spin around the hospital or not?”

Bucky grumbles something incoherent, but stops trying to get out of bed. Steve goes and gets the wheelchair and helps Bucky into it.

It’s a nice day, and the staff let them go outside to the courtyard. Steve even relents and lets Bucky out of his wheelchair for a second so he can sit next to Steve on a bench. It’s peaceful and they just sit there in silence for a little while, soaking up the sun. Neither of them has gotten out much lately, and they’re both way too pale.

Steve breaks the silence first. “Hey, Buck?” he asks.

“Hmm?” Bucky breaks his daze to look at Steve.

“Do you remember everything? From our time with Novikov?”

Bucky lowers his head and Steve can see his eyes aren’t seeing anything right now, they’re remembering. He hates to bring it up, but there is something he has to know.

“Yes,” Bucky responds softly. “At least, I think I do.”

“Then,” Steve takes a deep breath, “Then I think it’s time we talked.”

Bucky nods slowly. “I thought you might want to.”

“I know you don’t want to here it,” Steve cuts in, “But I need to make sure you understand how I feel. I’ve felt this way for a long time, and I know what I’m talking about. So don’t tell me I don’t know what I’m saying or I’m confused or…”

Bucky just raises an eyebrow at how much Steve is rambling. It’s time to just spit it out.

“I love you,” he says. “And not just in that you’re my best friend in the world, which you are, but...” He sighs. The rambling isn’t getting any better. “I’m in love with you. Like I want spend my days with you. Like I want to wake up every morning with you in my arms. Like, I want… I want you.” He concludes there. He hasn’t looked up at Bucky for the last few sentences. He’s starting to get mortified that he just said all that, especially if Bucky doesn’t feel the same way.

Bucky starts to laugh. That’s not the reaction he thought he’d get. He thinks he may be more insulted than if Bucky had just punched him.

“I know you probably don’t feel the same way,” Steve mumbles, “But you don’t have to laugh at me.”

“Steve,” Bucky says, still laughing. “You’re an idiot.”

Steve’s head snaps up at the insult, ready to challenge Bucky. “Hey,” he starts. Bucky just keeps on laughing, but there isn’t anything mean behind his eyes. He’s just highly amused. Steve is quickly getting very confused.

“Steve,” Bucky says, “You’re such a stupid punk. Of course I love you too.” Then he reaches over and pulls Steve into a kiss.

Steve gasps in surprise, but quickly surrenders into the kiss. His lips part and he melts into Bucky. He surprises himself and gives a little moan into the kiss.

And then it’s over. Bucky pulls away and he left there with his eyes closed just taking it in.

He hears a little chuckle from Bucky and his eyes snap open. Now he’s pissed. “You jerk,” he tells Bucky. “Why the fuck didn’t you say anything then?”

Bucky stops laughing and gives him a sad look. “It’s just… After the Winter Soldier…” he pauses. Steve knows he still has trouble separating himself and the Winter Solider. “After all that, I wasn’t ready.”

Steve searches his eyes, seeing the sad melancholy that still lingers. “Are you ready now?” Steve asks hopefully.

Bucky smiles. “Yeah. Almost dying will do that to a guy.” He laughs, but it’s without much humor.

“Bucky,” Steve says worriedly. “I don’t want you rushing into something you’re not ready for just because you had a near death experience.”

Bucky turns serious and looks at Steve. “I realized in that cell that I had been wrong. That being with you makes everything better. I’m not rushing into anything. Don’t you think eighty years of waiting is enough?”

“Eighty?” Steve asks startled. “But that would mean…” That would be before the war, back in Brooklyn. “Since then?”

“Yeah, you dumb punk. Since always.”


End file.
